


Time Out From The World

by CloudAtlas



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-adjacent, Multi, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Slice of Life, they're just so in love guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: He’s got four days of this. Four days before Fury whisks Natasha away, and May claims Clint for training recruits, and Bucky has to go with Pepper to France to speak to the EU or whatever it is she’s planning to do over there. Four days.God, he loves them.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 28
Kudos: 72
Collections: Holly Poly 2020





	Time Out From The World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/gifts).



> I hope you like this, Lily! Heavily inspired by the vibe of [All Night (Live at TIDALx1015)](https://youtu.be/4wGC_yrWxHI) and [XO by Beyonce](https://youtu.be/3xUfCUFPL-8), which came as a surprise to me, let me tell you. But those songs slap. Title from [Time Out From The World by Goldfrapp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=974y4ZfOO_o). Beta'd by **inkvoices**. Massive thank you to **paperairplanesopenwindows** for her extensive knowledge on the films of Olivia de Havilland.

Bucky’s sat on the couch when Clint finally walks through the door. He’s been migrating from couch to kitchen and back again for what feels like hours, barely able to settle from excitement. All three of them are going to be in the same space again, _finally_ , after three months. Three months since the last time he and Clint and Natasha shared the same space, breathed the same air, slept in the same bed. He’s seen them both more recently than that, but briefly, and that felt like twilight, not the full bright daylight of them all being together.

He’s _missed_ them.

And now, Clint is here.

“Bucky!” he cries as soon as he spots Bucky, throwing his arms out in an over enthusiastic gesture that results in him smacking the wall with the back of one hand. “Snugglebunny!”

“Shut up,” Bucky says with a laugh. “God, you’re a dick.”

Clint laughs and drops his bag by the door, not even bothering to toe off his shoes before he’s rushing at Bucky, folding his long arms around Bucky’s shoulders and crushing him into a hug. Bucky’d complain, he really would, apart from he can hardly _breathe_ , so instead he simply returns the hug just as fiercely because, Christ, he’s missed this man.

Clint’s been away on a mission for a week, and before that Bucky was away for a month, and before that Natasha was in deep cover for two months at some pharmaceutical company. They’ve just kept missing each other – by days usually, but he knows Clint missed Natasha once by half an hour and somehow that’s _worse_.

“Jesus,” Clint says. “I fucking missed you.”

Bucky laughs into his neck. “Yeah, yeah me too, you maniac.”

Clint pulls back, loosening his grip slightly and pressing a kiss to Bucky’s mouth; hard and full of joy.

“Where’s Nat?”

“Emergency meeting with Fury,” Bucky says, bushing his nose against Clint’s because he can’t help himself, Clint’s skin warm against his. “Should be back soon.”

“The Exomol thing?”

“Yeah.”

Clint hums and shuffles closer, pressing his face back into Bucky’s neck. His hands slide up and under the loose material of Bucky’s t-shirt, hands splayed flat and wide against the skin of his lower back. Bucky can feel him breathing, can almost kid himself that he feels Clint’s heartbeat.

“I should get changed,” Clint mumbles. But he doesn’t move away and they remain standing there for an indeterminable amount of time until Clint starts shifting, his unenhanced muscles protesting their lack of movement.

“Mm Buck,” he says into Bucky’s throat, “I gotta move. Gotta get changed.”

Bucky’s arms tighten and then release, and Clint presses a quick kiss to his mouth before stepping away. Bucky doesn’t let go completely though, retaining a grip on Clint’s right hand with his leftnot quite willing to let go of him completely yet. Clint grins at him when he realises what Bucky’s doing and he swoops back in to capture his mouth in another kiss, biting gently on his bottom lip before pulling away again.

He tilts his head towards the kitchen. “Something smells good.”

“I’m making stew,” Bucky says.

Clint grins. “Cooking for us, Barnes?”

Bucky shrugs in reply. “I like cooking.”

Clint’s grin softens into something tender and fond and he presses yet another kiss, this time to Bucky’s jaw. “I know you do,” he says, toeing off his sneakers. He starts heading for the bedroom but Bucky doesn’t move, halting Clint’s progress with their still entwined hands and clearing his throat pointedly.

“What?”

Bucky points down to where Clint’s sneakers are strewn at his feet.

Clint rolls his eyes.

“You’re so _fussy_.”

“Not wanting to trip over your sneakers that you left in the middle of the floor is not _fussy_ ,” Bucky protests. “It’s basic fucking tidiness and self-preservation. Just because you don’t have any doesn’t mean we all don’t.”

Clint sticks his tongue out at him, but he picks up his sneakers up and throws them with unerring accuracy at the overstuffed shoe-rack by the apartment door. A pair of Natasha's boots fall off the rack with a thump as a result, making about as much mess as before just in a different place, but Clint waves a dismissive hand in their direction and makes no move to tidy them up. Bucky despairs, he really does.

“C’mon,” Clint jerks his head in the direction of their bedroom. “I want out of these jeans.”

“And you need my help?” Bucky asks mildly, finally allowing himself to be dragged across the room. He’ll care about the shoes later.

“I’m a big boy,” Clint replies, dropping his hand as soon as Bucky’s sat on the bed. “I can get dressed just fine on my own.”

“So you just want an audience.”

Clint grins the kind of grin Bucky can imagine adoring tattered circus posters on walls and pylons all over the Midwest. “You know it,” he says, pulling off his compression shirt with a flourish.

Bucky gives him a critical once-over. There’s no bruising that he can see and no bandages. In fact, other than the fading scar from that run-in with what’s-his-face in Latveria three months ago, Clint looks healthy and whole. It’s a miracle.

“Your thing go okay?” Bucky asks Clint’s bare back as he rummages through their chest of drawers. “No unexpected surprises?”

Clint shrugs, the play of muscles under skin momentarily distracting Bucky until Clint pulls some old SHIELD tee on. It’s too big on him, baggy and loose. One of Bucky’s then.

“Was fine. Intel was sound, and Sam and Hill are good to work with. I just sat in my nest the entire time. They never even needed me. Was practically a holiday.”

Clint shucks his tac pants. No new bruises there either, just miles of leg and sun-kissed skin. One sock comes off in this pant-leg while the other bunches around his ankle. They have cartoon pizza slices on them and Bucky feels a rush of fondness for Clint so acute it almost hurts.

“How about your thing?” Clint asks.

It’s been just under a week since Bucky’s last assignment finished, which is long enough for him to have purposely forgotten most of it. It’d mostly been travel and waiting and endless meetings anyway. Nothing exciting. He hadn’t even gotten to fire his gun. He’d just trailed after Steve and Stark like a particularly murderous bodyguard and glared at anyone who’d strayed too close to Pepper. It had been boring. The most exciting things that happened were Pepper’s scathing putdown of some greasy politician in France and Stark accidentally blowing up the microwave in their very expensive shared suit in Singapore. He’d fixed it no problem, but his affronted expression when it happened was probably the funniest thing Bucky’d seen in _ages_.

“Exactly as you thought it would be,” Bucky says with a shrug. “Mostly boring, lots of fancy clothes, lots of travelling.” They’d done fifteen countries in just over a month. Bucky’s never been as pissed off as he was when he learned he was about to spend two days in Fiji and he couldn’t go to the beach _once_.

Obviously, he and Steve had gone to the beach anyway. Like anyone was gonna tell them _no_.

“Bet you looked good though,” Clint says with a smirk.

“Bitch, I always look good.”

Clint barks out a delighted laugh. He pulls on some pyjama pants and one of Natasha's big chunky knit cardigans before swinging himself onto Bucky’s lap.

“Is that so?”

There’s a mischievous glint in Clint’s eyes and he looks bright and happy and _here_. Bucky is so in love.

“Uh-huh.” Bucky curls his hands around Clint’s hips, pulling him in until he’s flush against Bucky’s front. “Unfortunately for you, I’ve been _reliably_ informed that I’m a hot piece of ass.”

“Hmm.” Clint rests his arms on Bucky’s shoulders, one hand coming to curl in his hair. “That doesn’t seem right.” He tugs hard at Bucky’s hair, making him gasp quietly. “Look at this hobo hair, for a start.”

“Hey!” Bucky pulls back from Clint’s hands and swats him on the ass. “I’ll have you know this haircut cost a hundred and fifty bucks.”

It had as well. He’d had it done at Pepper’s insistence, though Bucky’d blanched at the price. Who needs a haircut that costs that much? He has to admit that it had felt _very_ silky once the hairdresser was done with it though. It’s just a shame that neither Clint nor Natasha had been there to appreciate it in all its newly pampered glory; it’s not quite as good now.

“Rip off,” Clint dismisses. “You should ask for your money back.”

He sinks his hands back into Bucky’s hair, carding his fingers through it gently. Bucky raises an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, it sure does look like you don’t like my hair right now.”

“Hush.” Clint tucks a strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear before leaning in to brush a feather light kiss against Bucky’s cheekbone. He pulls back, moves to Bucky’s other side, and presses a kiss to that cheekbone too, which turns into a line of kisses across his face. “I’ve missed you.”

Bucky can’t help the blush that creeps its way across his cheeks. Even though Clint’s already said it once today, even though _he’s said it to Clint_ , it still hits him. Suddenly, he can’t think of anything to say in response. Everything feels too small, too irrelevant and inconsequential and… not _enough_. Instead he just stares at Clint, at the flecks of green in his blue eyes and his patchy stubble and the scar on his lip he got god-knows-how, and sinks into the feeling of loving this man beyond words.

“You’re being sappy again,” Clint says like he can see into Bucky’s brain. There’s a rueful twist to his mouth Bucky doesn’t understand but it’s gone, quick as it had arrived, to be replaced with a grin. He leans in to press a lush kiss to Bucky’s lips.

A helpless smile breaks out over Bucky’s face once again. He opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off by a loud thump from the front door.

“What the fuck?”

Natasha's voice drifts through their apartment and Clint perks right the fuck up. There’s another thump, this time indicating a bag being dropped on the floor, and Bucky despairs of his partners, he really does. Would it kill them to put away their stuff? At least Natasha doesn’t leave her shoes strewn about. Small mercies.

“Well,” Natasha continues, apparently to herself, “if there are shoes in the middle of the floor I guess Clint is home.”

Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes as Clint clutches his hand to his chest, gasping overdramatically. “She knows me!” he proclaims. “My beloved!”

“Put your fucking shoes away, ‘beloved’!” Natasha yells back and Clint laughs delightedly. He scrambles off Bucky’s lap but barely makes it two steps before the bedroom door opens and Natasha's there, trying to look annoyed but mostly looking like she’s never seen anything so good in all her life as Clint in his stolen knitwear and Bucky with his messy hair. Clint sweeps her into his arms with a whoop, her legs swinging as he spins her around, and Bucky can feel his heart swell as a grin breaks out over her face.

“Barnes,” Clint calls from where his face is half-buried in Natasha's hair. “Get your ass over here.”

Natasha's legs are wrapped around Clint’s waist now and his hands are wide and steady on her ass. She laughs as she twists in his arms, one hand reaching out towards where Bucky’s sat on the bed, drawing him in. Bucky get up and wraps strong arms around them both, tucking his face into Natasha's neck and breathing her in.

_Three months_ , but here they are again, finally.

“My boys,” Natasha says softly, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s hair.

Bucky hums in response, his grip tightening on both of them almost involuntarily.

“I wrangled four days off out of Steve,” Natasha says, pulling back far enough to look them both in the face. “Said I’d kill him slowly if he called us for anything short of world-ending.”

Clint huffs out a laugh at that and shifts to let Natasha down when she starts wiggling out of his grip. She heads for the wardrobe and vanity, stripping out of her _very_ skinny jeans as she goes and rooting around in a pile of clothes until she unearths some awful old yoga pants which she pulls on with obvious satisfaction.

“Urgh, those jeans.”

“Make your ass look great though, babe,” Clint says with an exaggerated leer.

“Which is, of course, all that matters,” Natasha shoots back archly.

Clint grins at her as she seats herself at her vanity and then drags Bucky by the hand back to the bed, manhandling him until he’s sat to Clint’s specifications, which mostly just means in a way that allows Clint to sit behind him and play with his hair. Not that Bucky’s complaining; Clint’s propensity for touching was one of the major things that’d helped Bucky in the wake of all the Hydra mindfuckery. Nothing reminds you that you’re alive and safe quite like a hot guy running his hands through your hair. Hydra sure as hell never did _that_ for Bucky.

“How’d your thing go?” he asks Natasha, tipping his head back into Clint’s clever fingers.

She sighs, reaching for her makeup wipes. “Bērziņš is definitely the link.”

“And Aliyeva?”

“Also definitely involved.”

“Ah fuck,” Clint says emphatically.

Sounds like the whole Exomol has taken a turn for the fucking annoying. Bucky’s so glad he’s not involved. SHIELD still has him doing the easy stuff, which he’d complain about but honestly it’s kinda nice just to follow Pepper Potts around and intimidate politicians. He’s had enough of spy shit and intrigue and killing for several lifetimes. Let Clint and Natasha do the heroic shit; he’ll stick to sneaking onto Fijian beaches and watching Tony Stark break microwaves.

Natasha's almost entirely make up free now, her face pale and somehow softer. She unbuttons her white silk blouse and exchanges it for one of Bucky’s stretched out gym tanks, then does that specific manoeuvre to remove her bra while dressed that Bucky’s sure all women learn at some point in their life. Clint hums appreciatively. Natasha rolls her eyes.

“You know,” Clint says, his hands in Bucky’s hair becoming more purposeful – Bucky’s gonna end up with braids, he just knows it. “You could just manipulate the money instead.”

“How’d you mean?” Natasha asks. She unpins her hair and brushes it out.

“Exomol is basically laundering money, right?” Natasha opens her mouth to contradict him but Clint cuts her off with a, “ _Basically_ ,” and Natasha nods to concede. “And Exomol is tied almost exclusively to Bērziņš, right? He’s the CEO and has the controlling share.” Natasha nods again. “So manipulate the money until it’s _all_ going through Exomol. Then bring down Exomol.” Bucky feels Clint shrug. “It’ll take Aliyeva with it, as well as Palan Inc., Traore, and the West African Hydra link.” Natasha stares at Clint. “Hell, it might even throw up more connections with the rest of Africa or Eastern Europe. And getting Exomol out of the pharma market will literally save millions, because they’re garbage. Sure – ” Clint tugs a little too forcefully on Bucky’s hair, making him wince. “Sorry Buck. Sure, it’ll take more work and extend the mission by – ” Natasha raises an eyebrow, “okay, _a lot_ , but… no more Exomol, no more Palan Inc., no more Aliyeva or Bērziņš, and fuck Hydra, am I right?”

There’s a very loaded silence.

“You know,” Natasha says eventually, her fingers pressed against her forehead like she’s begging for strength, “if I take this to Fury it will be _very obvious_ that it wasn’t my idea. If you’d – ”

“Oh, fuck no.”

“ – just consider – ”

“Why the fuck would I want to – ”

“ – trying out – ”

“ – spend my days fucking squinting at computers when I could be – ”

“ _Clint_.”

“You _know_ I’d be bored, Nat,” Clint says, fond exasperation thick in his voice. “It’s _boring_.”

Natasha sighs, like she always does when Clint brings out his trump card. Because it’s _true_.

Natasha has low-key been trying to get Clint to move more towards analysis on and off for a while now, because he’s just _really damn good at it_ , but he’s having none of it. To be fair to him, Clint is not the type of man to sit pouring over reams of paper or staring at computer screens all day. For one, his dyslexia is pretty fucking severe, but also he’s right: he’d be _bored_. It doesn’t matter that he’d be amazing at it, it doesn’t matter that in two minutes flat he’s solved a problem Bucky’s sure Steve and Fury and May have been wrestling with for a while; he’d be bored, and a bored Clint Barton is a dangerous Clint Barton.

Natasha drops her hands into her lap, her frustration melting off her face. She takes in Bucky and Clint sitting on their bed. “Here,” she says, holding out a hair tie to Clint. There’s a series of tugs of Bucky hair and then he feels the weight of a braid fall against his neck.

“Beautiful,” Natasha says with a smile, making him blush faintly, which is ridiculous because he’s a _grown man, god_. Clint presses a kiss to the hot skin at the back of Bucky’s neck, which just makes him blush harder. “Also,” Natasha continues after a moment, “give me my cardigan back.”

“Nooo,” Clint whines dramatically, going so far as to burrow into Bucky’s back, wrapping them both in Natasha’s borrowed chunky knit cardigan.

“I’ll swap you,” she wheedles, digging around in a bag under her vanity and bringing out –

“I thought you’d thrown it away!” Clint says in delight, smacking Bucky on the arm.

Bucky frowns. “I _did_.”

“And I rescued it,” Natasha says, “for bribery purposes.”

‘It’ is an old zip up hoodie of Bucky’s which is, objectively, completely trashed. It had been a favourite in the weeks following his initial deprogramming by Shuri and the Wakanda techs, soft and black and huge enough to swallow him completely. Then his arm had malfunctioned – a leftover Hydra failsafe everyone had missed – the plates deliberately and painfully misaligning, sending excruciating pain shooting through him and chewing through the material on the left arm of the clothes he’d been wearing at the time. The result is a _mess_ , the left arm of the hoodie completely shredded and tangled up with memories of pain.

So of course as soon as Clint found it buried in the back of his wardrobe, he’d taken an instant shine to it.

“Gimme,” Clint demands, immediately removing Natasha’s cardigan and making grabby hands in her direction.

Bucky sighs. “You look like an idiot,” he says as Clint wrestles the hoodie on, fingers constantly snagging on ripped material.

“Eh,” Clint shrugs. “Nothing new there. Stew?”

Oh shit, Bucky had almost forgotten about that.

“Ooh, there’s stew?” Natasha says brightly. “Are we getting a fancy dinner?”

Bucky shrugs, standing up. “It’s just my mom’s stew.” He avoids everyone’s eyes, grabbing a hoodie – Clint’s maybe? Hoodies are practically communal at this point – from the foot of the bed and dragging it on before heading towards the kitchen. But he makes the mistake of looking back at Clint and Natasha when he reaches the door, just in time to see them send very tender and fond looks his way.

Okay, yes. It’s not _fancy_ , but making his mom’s stew is kinda special anyway. His pre-Hydra memories are patchy and jumbled and he has a suspicion that he’s got back basically everything he’s going to at this point, which means his most solid memories of his life pre-Hydra amount to: Sarah Rogers teaching him how to make apple pie one day when Steve was sick; mosaic memories of the taste of tobacco; Michael Flannery being yelled at for dropping a barrel one icy December morning; kissing Elizabeth O’Connor outside the grocers one summer; the smell of charcoal and turpentine and newspaper print; and his mom at the stove, making Sunday stew with the best cuts of meat they could afford that month.

And Steve and Steve and Steve.

So, yeah. It’s not a fancy stew. But perhaps it’s a _special_ stew.

He’s _missed them_ , okay? He’s allowed to do this.

“Hmm.” Natasha hums in a way that means she’s up to something and Bucky squints at her suspiciously. “I think this calls for dressing up, don’t you?”

His looks at her shapeless tank top and Clint’s shredded hoodie – both of them his – and raises a sceptical eyebrow, moving to lean against the doorjamb with his arms crossed.

“Yes,” she continues, nodding to herself and moving to rummage in her vanity. “Definitely.”

And then she hooks a pair of huge diamond chandelier earrings through her earlobes. They catch in the chunky knit of her cardigan, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She grins at him.

“Aww, I don’t have anything.” Clint pouts, like dressing up is his reason for living when it’s _patently not_. Clint complains when he has to wear slacks and getting him in a tux is a _nightmare_ , though admittedly worth it. That man sure can rock formalwear.

Natasha's grin is turned on Clint as she once again rummages in her vanity before dangling from one finger a novelty cat-ear headband, which – where the fuck did that even come from? Why does _anyone_ in this house have cat-ear headbands?

Clint laughs and stands, giving Natasha a soft kiss to the lips before unceremoniously shoving the headband on his head.

“There we go,” he says, turning to face Bucky and wrapping his arm securely around Natasha's waist. “Fancy.”

Natasha leans her head back against Clint’s shoulder, smiling at him, hair loose and face make up free. Bucky’s heart swell with affection. They’re ridiculous, but they’re _his_. He’s so lucky.

“It’s not a big deal,” he says.

“We know,” Clint shoots back, sly. “That’s why we’ve not got changed. We don’t like you _that_ much.”

Bucky smiles and looks away.

“C’mon.” Clint chivvies Natasha and Bucky ahead of him and into the kitchen, where the smell of stew hangs heavy in the air, and Bucky can’t help but grin. “Really, we only keep you for the cooking,” he continues, lifting the lid off the stew pot and letting out a cloud of steam. “Mm, smells good.”

“Be helpful and get some bowls,” Bucky says, hip checking Clint away from the stove before he can do something dumb like set anything on fire. Clint can do breakfast foods and he can cook for groups larger than twenty, but other than that he’s basically a health hazard in the kitchen. It’s just one of the many contradictions that make up Clint Barton.

The three of them move around the kitchen like a well-oiled machine, Clint getting bowls while Bucky checks the seasoning and Natasha digs out a mess of candles from _somewhere,_ because apparently she’s sticking with the idea of this being _fancy_. It’s nice, just finally having them both in his space again; Clint absentmindedly humming off-key and Natasha critically evaluating what would be the most suitable wine. It’s homey. Comforting. Contentment washes through Bucky in a wave.

“They’re showing _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ later tonight,” he says as he ladles stew into bowls. “You wanna watch?”

They’re going to be too tired to really do anything tonight. Despite how he’s trying to hide it, Bucky can see Clint’s that beginning to flag, post-mission exhaustion catching up with him all at once, and tiredness clings to the corners of Natasha's eyes; meetings with Fury are rarely easy.

“That could be nice,” Natasha says, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Clint squints at him suspiciously.

“Wait,” he says, “is it, by any chance, on TCM?”

“Maybe,” Bucky allows, trying to bite down a smile.

“And does it, by any chance, have Olivia de Havilland in it?”

“There’s a _distinct_ possibility.”

Clint lets out an explosive sigh. “I _guess_. But I reserve the right to make out with Natasha during the boring bits.”

“Excuse you, there are no boring bits where Olivia de Havilland is concerned,” Bucky says, just as Natasha says, “It’s _Shakespeare,_ you philistine.”

Clint sticks his tongue out at both of them.

In the end, Clint doesn’t make out with Natasha in the (totally non-existent) boring bits. He falls asleep instead, curled up with his head against the back of the couch and his legs across both their laps, dead to the world. As soon as they notice, Bucky pauses the movie so Natasha can tuck a throw around him and remove his hearing aids without missing any of it.

“He’d’ve stayed awake if it were _Robin Hood_ ,” she says with a smile as she curls herself back under Bucky’s arm.

He’s got four days of this. Four days before Fury whisks Natasha away, and May claims Clint for training recruits, and Bucky has to go with Pepper to France to speak to the EU or whatever it is she’s planning to do over there. Four days.

God, he loves them.

“Next time,” Bucky replies, dropping a kiss onto her hair.

Natasha hums in agreement and Bucky strokes a thumb over Clint’s ankle once before unpausing the TV.


End file.
